There are eight specialized hospitals in the Netherlands that treat patients with recurrent rectal cancer, including the Catharina Hospital. These expertise centers are looking for new combinations of classic forms of treatment (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy). While all of these approaches show some improvement, recurrent rectal cancer remains a disease with a high mortality rate.
Space limited
“It is a precarious area to operate in. The rectum is located in the pelvis and space is limited. Patients with a recurrent tumor in the rectum have also often developed scar tissue as a result of the operation of the primary tumor, which makes reoperation even more drastic and difficult. Patients are therefore always pre-treated before such an operation. Then the tumor becomes smaller and the chance that we can remove the tumor in its entirety during the operation is greater. Before surgery, patients now receive standard chemoradiation, radiation in combination with chemo tablets, ”explains surgeon Dr. Pim Burger.
Extra chemotherapy
The large international study set up by the Catharina Hospital will be investigating in the near future whether adding extra chemotherapy treatments to the pre-treatment shows more favorable outcomes. Nordkamp: “In the past we have already treated patients with a recurrent tumor in the rectum in this way at the Catharina Hospital. What we see is that the tumor responds to this: it gets smaller and sometimes it disappears completely. But whether the prognosis of patients will also improve, or whether the treatment will not be unnecessarily heavy and long, we do not yet know. A total of 364 patients are included in this large study in different countries. Through this large-scale approach, we hope to be able to offer better care to this specific group of patients in the future, here at the Catharina Hospital, in the Netherlands and worldwide. ”
European rolled out
The study is being rolled out nationally and internationally by the Catharina Hospital. At the beginning of this year, the Catharina Hospital’s bowel cancer program received a subsidy of 3 million euros from ZonMW. The aim is to set up large-scale research, with a major contribution to the quality of care in the Netherlands. Improving and strengthening the mutual cooperation between Dutch hospitals is also an important part of the assignment given to Catharina Hospital. “It is not clear what the best treatment for patients with a recurrent rectal tumor is. This collaboration and research represent an important step forward for the prognosis and quality of life of rectal cancer patients worldwide, ”said Burger.
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